22 February 2008

I have recently been made aware (on ActKm listserve) by Shawn Callahan of one of his blog post dated 03/09/06 and titled “Tree dozen knowledge sharing barriers”. Shawn was commenting on an article written by Andreas Riege (with the same name as the post).

First, I excluded the technological barriers as these are not directly linked the organizational culture.From the remaining 29 barriers, I manage to make 15 of them correspond to at least one of 12 of my traits. So they were mutually confirming each other.One barrier can actually be linked to nearly all of my traits: “Existing corporate culture does not provide sufficient support for sharing practices”.

This left the following 4 cultural traits not addressed by Andreas’ list:

2. Focus on short-term objectives: the “no need to share knowledge since once objectives are met, it wont be needed anymore” syndrome.

11. Job Description framing: The 'No-one's paying us to have a wider vision' syndrome.

15. Modesty resulting from lack of encouragement: the 'who am I to teach others, of course they know' syndrome.

From the 14 barriers not linked to a cultural trait, I identified only 4 that each warranted a new cultural trait in my list. Here are the 4 new traits with the associated syndromes:

17. Dominance of explicit over tacit knowledge sharing:The 'we only truly value what is written down and validated' syndrome.

18. Lack of social networks:The 'only networks supporting business processes are important and encouraged' syndrome.

19. Lack of knowledge management strategy and sharing initiatives into the company’s goals and strategic approach:The 'Intellectual Property is the only Intellectual Capital that is worth managing strategically' syndrome.

20. High internal competitiveness within business units, functional areas, and subsidiaries:The 'we only share knowledge within our team since everyone else is potential competition' syndrome.

So that makes now 20 traits of organisational cultures not conducive to knowledge-sharing.

About Me

I have extensive experience in Information Technology and Systems Management in the Retail sector, and particularly proficient at aligning technology with the business strategy and objectives.
I joined BP in 2011.